One a penny, two a penny: Recipes for Hot Cross Buns (1912)

One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns

We do not hear the cry “Hot Cross Buns, Hot Cross Buns, One a Penny, Two a Penny, Hot Cross Buns,” when we awaken on Good Friday morning in this country.

A good reason for this failure is that our wives and mothers are such excellent cooks that with their own fingers they mix the dough that goes into the bread for the greatest fast day of the year.

In the older countries the maternal head of the house is not a bread-maker. So the baker boy goes up one street and down another calling in musical tones the well known rhyme of our childhood.

Here are a couple of recipes for Good Friday buns. Either will make delicious buns. Do not neglect, however, to make a cross in the top of each bit of bread before putting the baking tin in the oven.

Irish Hot Cross Buns recipe

To 3 cups of milk, add flour enough to make a thick batter. Into this, stir 1 cake of compressed yeast dissolved in warm water. In the morning, add a few spoonfuls of melted butter and 1/2 spoonfuls of grated nutmeg, 1 saltspoon of salt, 1 teaspoonful of soda, and flour enough to make a stiff dough like biscuit.

Add butter, sugar, and salt to milk; when lukewarm, add dissolved yeast cake, cinnamon, flour and egg well beaten; when thoroughly mixed, add raisins, cover, and let rise overnight. In morning, shape in forms of large biscuits, place in pan 1 inch apart, let rise, brush over with beaten egg, and bake 20 minutes; cool, and with ornamental frosting make a cross on top of each bun.

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